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THE ECONOMY OF INTERPRETING POWER IN FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
1. Definition of Figures. A FIGURE of speech is an expression in which one thing is said in the form of another related to it. Figures are usually divided into figures of orthography, etymology, syntax, and rhetoric. The first three classes are grammatical, and will not be treated here. All figures not grammatical may be classed as rhetori¬cal, and will be treated in detail. Quintilian's distinc¬tion between tropes and figures is of no practical value. 2. Laws of Association. - In treating of a train of thought, it was stated that ideas are associated in the mind according to certain fixed principles, and that their succession in the mind depends upon that association. "Philosophers, having observed that one thought determined another to arise, and that this determination only took place between thoughts which stood in certain relations to each other, set themselves to ascertain and classify the kinds of correlatior under which this occurred, in order to gen• eralize the laws by which the phenomenon of Repro¬ductiou was governed. Accordingly, it has been established, that thoughts are associated, that is, are able to excite each other : (1) if coexistent, or imme¬diately successive in time ; (2) if their objects are conterminous or adjoining in space ; (3) if they hold the dependence to each other of cause and effect, or of mean and end, Or of whole and part ; (4) if they stand in a relation either of contrast or of similarity ; (5) if they are the operations of the same power, or of differ¬ent powers conversant about the same object ; (6) if their objects are the sign and the signified ; or (7) even if their objects are accidentally denoted by the same sound."* 8. These Laws Reduced to Three. These conditions were reduced by Aristotle to three, and may be summed up in one, that "Thoughts that have once coexisted in the mind are afterward associ¬ated." For our purpose, however, Aristotle's three¬fold division will be most convenient. We shall, then, regard these laws of association as three : (1) Resem¬blance; (2) Contiguity; and (3) Contrast. That is, conceptions having resemblance, contiguity, or con¬trast, are associated together. 4. Use of these Laws. These being the tracks, so to speak, on which all minds run, it is evident that we may determine from them both why figures improve style, and what figures are advantageous. (1) Why Figures Improve Style.—In all minds, objects, acts and relations are associated by resem¬blance, contiguity, and contrast ; that is, objects which resemble each other, are contiguous to each other, or are contrasted with each other, mutually sug¬gest each other. Some names are more specific and concrete than others associated with them through resemblance, contiguity, or contrast in the objects. Hence interpreting power may sometimes be economized by selecting from associated objects, acts, and relations, the most specific and concrete. This is done by figures, in which the general and the abstract are expressed in the form of the specific and concrete. They are, therefore, to style what diagrams are to Geometry, experiments to Chemistry, or maps to Geog¬raphy. They render shadowy abstractions visible and tangible, and so economize interpreting power. (2) What Figures are Advantageous.—In order to determine what figures are conducive to this end, we must consider these laws of association separately, and note in what manner they may be applied to economize interpreting power. We proceed to do this in the following sections.